


Idiosyncrasies

by pugnacious



Category: Titanfall (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16555772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pugnacious/pseuds/pugnacious
Summary: Jack learned that having your own Titan was a lot like taking care of a child – just one made of metal and two stories tall.





	Idiosyncrasies

**Author's Note:**

> This is a VERY old fic that hasn't been beta tested (I think - it's so old I can't remember), so it's... not very good. It was almost finished and has been sitting in my files for ages. I could never figure out a proper ending for it, but I figured I might as well attempt one so I can finally post it. I'm not gonna go back and fix it at this point.
> 
> It's never addressed in the fic, but this is technically set after the game and BT is recovered from Cooper's helmet.
> 
> Edit: I lied, I updated it to fix grammar and make minor edits.

“Cooper.”

“What's up, BT?”

BT had a knack for ending conversions – it was hard to keep talking over the thundering footsteps of an approaching Titan, after all.

Not that he was interrupting anything important. Him and Bear were just trash talking the rundown station they had been previously posted at, now that they were back in the safety of the ship. The rats liked chewing the electrical cables used to power the decrepit mainframes, and it wasn’t pleasant to find dead computers, along with the smell of charred rodent when the electricity zapped them.

BT flexed his hands and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and he wouldn't look at the Pilot. For a robot with such a flat voice and expressionless face, he looked incredibly uncomfortable. Bear noticed too, and raised a questioning eyebrow at Cooper.

“... Never mind,” BT turned around and started to stomp away.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up,” Cooper ran to block his retreat. “What’s wrong?”

BT shook his head, something he picked up a long time ago from watching people. “It’s not important.”

Cooper crossed his arms. “Come on, just let it out, buddy.”

BT hesitated. He was quiet for so long that Cooper thought he might walk away without a word, before the Titan spoke up.

“I'm bored.”

Cooper released the breath he was holding, having expected something much worse. Bear snickered from behind BT, and Cooper shot him a look that clearly meant to say ‘shut the fuck up.’

“Can't you screw around in a sim or something?” he asked.

“There are only so many times I can simulate and analyze combat situations.” Which was the only thing they were good for, Cooper knew.

“Okay, what, you want me to play chess with you or something?”

“Chess is a game of pattern recognition and requires no skill for an A.I. with faultless memorization,” BT said. “And it's not fun when I always win.”

Cooper let out his own snicker at that. “So what do you normally do when you’re bored?”

BT made a soft whirring noise that sounded like a thoughtful hum.

“Lastimosa would read stories to me.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Oh yeah,” Bear chimed in. “Tai had a whole stack of books just for him. You still got them, BT?”

“Affirmative,” BT strode over to the far corner of the hangar and grabbed a metal box tucked away from sight. Cooper wasn't sure of Titans were allowed possessions, but he wouldn't be surprised if Briggs let him keep some of Lastimosa’s things after everything he went through. She had a soft spot for Titans under that harsh exterior. 

BT set it the box in front of the Pilots, and Cooper clicked the lid open to reveal a collection of old, worn books. The smell wafting from them was the same musty scent of the cigars Lastimosa once smoked. There were a few thick textbooks on science and history, filled with jargon and math that would've made his head spin, but most appeared to be classics from an old era. Some titles he recognized, many others he didn't -  _ The Jungle Book _ ,  _ Ender’s Game _ ,  _ Watership Down _ , and so many more. 

“We never finished  _ The Story of Edgar Sawtell _ ,” BT said, pointing to a thick book sitting on the top of the pile. There was a twinge of sadness in his voice, so slight that no one but his own Pilot would ever notice.

Cooper gently picked up the book and skimmed through its pages. It was well worn with  yellowing pages and cracked spine, but it still held together. “Why can’t you read them yourself? You’ve got an eye and hands.”

“The first time BT tried that, he ripped out several pages, then destroyed the whole thing trying to put them back in,” Bear was giggling as he talked. “I watched the whole thing with Tai, he almost pissed himself laughing.”

BT released a gush of air from his cooling vents, his equivalent of a sigh. “Lastimosa remarked that it was ‘not my finest moment.’”

The thought of BT freaking out over his ruined book with torn pages floating around him in a flurry made Cooper chuckle. It didn’t, however, make him any less reluctant to read to his Titan like he was a child being tucked in bed. “Can’t I just turn the pages for you? Or download an e-book, you could finish it in seconds.”

BT blinked. “Titans are not permitted access to download any data without clearance first.” Meaning someone would have to submit a request for it, and assuming they didn't deny it, it would still take a long time before they even bothered to look at it. “It is also not fun that way either.”

Cooper flinched and almost dropped the book when Bear smacked him on the back. “Stop making excuses, Jack. Reading to your Titan is the least embarrassing thing a Pilot has done for an A.I. Tai used to do it all the time. ”

“You mean there’s worse things?”

“A lot more, believe me,” Bear grinned, patted him a few times for good measure. “I’m heading out to see if the commander needs anything. Have fun.” He waved them goodbye and walked off.

The two stood there in silence. BT waited while the gears in the Pilot's mind churned.

Cooper sighed, then smiled as he glanced at BT in his blue optic.

“Okay buddy, where’d you leave off at?”

If Titans could smile, he was certain BT would be beaming at him.

___

“Are all Titans weird?” Cooper asked through a mouthful of toast.

A few of the 6-4 and SRS were gathered in the hangar for lunch that day. Briggs had, amazingly, brought several loaves of freshly baked bread straight from the planet Harmony, a gift from the farmers there who were grateful to the Pilots for making sure they weren't blown to bits by IMC. Compared to the appalling meals they ate every day from the cafeteria, it was a blessing to have some good food.

BT and MOB-1316 – Briggs’ Titan – stood idling nearby as well. BT was happy just to be near Cooper, but MOB kept fidgeting, like he didn't know what to do with himself.

“You still have a lot to learn about Titans, Cooper,” Briggs said, buttering a slice of toast and passing it to Gates. “They’ve got a lot of quirks.”

“I don’t get why they can’t program this stuff out though,” Cooper popped another piece of bread in the toaster they had brought from the kitchen.

“The engineers like to compare it to human DNA,” Gates said in between bites. “We can map out entire genomes, but that doesn’t tell us what any of it does. Titan code is the same way, we don’t understand the whole thing.”

“Yeah, but humans  _ wrote _ that code,” Cooper remarked.

“Incorrect,” BT asserted. “Titan code is built by advanced software that was written by humans, but that software has no awareness of its process for coding an AI, nor do the humans who created it.”

“Then why can’t Titans just tell us what the code does?”

“We’ll let BT explain to you what each bit of the one hundred billion lines of code that make up a Titan and see if you can make sense of it all,” Briggs pointed an accusing butter knife at Cooper. The toaster dinged and out popped fresh slice of toasted bread.

“Ha ha, yeah,” he jeered, stretching for the toast. “No thanks, I’m perfectly happy not having to–“

Cooper patted the table. He stared at the empty spot where his hand rested.

“… Where’d the toaster go?”

“Commander Briggs’ Titan has taken it,” BT observed.

Briggs’ head snapped to the direction of her Titan and stood so fast that her chair clambered to the ground. “MOB-1316, you give that back right now!”

The Titan flinched and slowly, he held out his hand to Cooper, the toaster sitting in his palm. Cooper muttered a thanks as he placed it back on the table and grabbed the toast. 

“Sorry Cooper, he steals crap all the time.” Briggs righted her chair and sat down on it with a huff. “I tried giving him whatever junk I find just so he'd quit it, but it doesn't stop him. You should see the hoard he has going on,” she shook her head.

MOB perked up, optic widening. “Do you want me to show him?”

“No, Moby, no one wants to see your pile of junk.”

“No big deal.” Cooper grinned. “If it would make you happy Moby, I would  _ love _ to see your junk.”

"You have a stupidly shitty sense of humor." Briggs reached over and punched him in the shoulder. Cooper just laughed.

BT tilted his head in confusion. “I do not understand the joke.”

Cooper was still giggling as he patted BT’s leg. “I’ll tell you when you’re older, buddy.”

Bear was snickering as well. “Yeah BT, in two years you'll be as old as Cooper is now, since he's actually a five-year-old.” 

“BT is only three?” Cooper raised an eyebrow. “That would explain some things.”

“How old did you think he was?” Briggs asked.

“I dunno, twenty-something, I guess?” Cooper shrugged. He looked at BT, the smile never leaving his face. “You're just a big baby.”

BT narrowed his eye as he tried to apprehend the joke. “I should be offended by this.”

“I'll gladly punch him again for you, BT,” Briggs offered.

“Unnecessary,” BT stood up and walked towards the hangar door. “I will roll around in the mud instead.”

Cooper was up in a heartbeat, yelling as he chased after him, waving his half-eaten toast around in the air. “Don't you dare, we just got you cleaned yesterday!”

___

“What does your tattoo represent?”

BT was sitting cross-legged on the floor, something he started at his own discretion. To be closer to Cooper, as he put it. It was always funny to watch him trying to maneuver his double-jointed legs and his awkwardly shaped backend – he was not built for sitting, that was certain, but he managed it well enough.

Cooper himself was seated on BT’s thigh, back against his chassis, legs propped up to hold the book. He used the bright light shining from BT’s eye as a book light in the darkness. His usual gloves were off, revealing a half of the red and black tattoo from forearm to wrist, right within BT’s line of sight, but in the blue light, the red appeared jet black. 

He was used to BT asking all sorts of questions, especially while reading – what's that word mean in that context? was he being metaphorical? why do you keep interrupting to make these crude jokes, Jack? – but this one caught him off guard. He must have been pondering the question a while, since he decided interrupting Cooper in the middle of reading, during the night of a mission on some planet out in nowhere, was the best time to ask. 

“This here,” Cooper, always eager to show off his tattoo, rolled up his sleeve as high as it would go, “represents the Frontier. But it looks ways better during the day.”

It was, BT observed, a crude “map” of the many bits and pieces that made up the Frontier.

“This one’s Earth, where I'm from, ” Cooper pointed to the biggest circle, then moved to another. “That one's Harmony. The others are planets I’ve been to. The rest is just to look pretty.” He shrugged as if it was nothing, but every bit had a meaning. He promised himself he'd tell the whole story to BT one day. 

“Why did you get it?” BT asked.

Cooper sighed through his nose. “It's a reminder. About why I'm fighting, what I'm fighting for. Earth isn't my home anymore, the Frontier is – but I want to make both better."

He still remembers leaving Earth as a child, away from all the grey, crowded cities and corporate capitalism the IMC liked to toss around recklessly - and seeing raw nature, untouched by human hands for the first time, on another planet in the Frontier.

That's why he loved the Frontier. The IMC liked to destroy everything it touched and replace it with concrete and computers, but here, the alien forests and wildlife flourished.

BT placed a hand over his chassis where the old emblem was painted on, with care, so as not to scratch it. “It is like my SRS insignia. It is a symbol of where you come from.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Cooper smiled. He laid the book down rested his hands behind his head. “Since you asked me a question, I get to ask you one.”

“Certainly.”

“What was it like when they first woke you up?”

BT let out a mechanical hum. 

“I started as a program in a computer. My creation was a quick but gradual process achieved by several programs which stitched together code over the course of a few days, until I was a functioning A.I. capable of thinking for myself. As Lastimosa once compared it, it was much like slowly waking up.”

“Huh,” Cooper leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “And what was it like being a baby Titan? I don't mean that as a joke this time.”

“I received data on war tactics and battle, and was tested for three months before I was given my Titan chassis and Lastimosa was assigned as my Pilot,” BT said. His voice grew soft. “He taught me that there is a significant difference between knowing how to fight and putting that knowledge into action.”

“Said the same thing to me about being a Pilot,” Cooper nodded and folded his hands together, thinking about the few weeks he spent training with Lastimosa. “He was a good guy. Wish I got to know him longer.”

The conversation went silent. It was a while before BT spoke again, his voice low.

“You are a lot like him.”

Cooper leaned back again and listened. 

“He always went out of his way to make sure I was happy. Answered my unending questions without exception. Never minded my flaws.”

“Hey, they're not flaws. You're just quirky.”

“If that is how you want to put it. But I am not without faults.”

“Well, you're perfect to me,” Cooper patted BT’s thigh and looked up into BT's blue optic. “I think Tai thought so too.”

BT let out a robotic, peaceful sigh, like he was releasing all the tension he was holding in. 

“I'm glad.”

He went quiet, and Cooper listened to the gentle hum of the Titan’s idle machinery, a sound that was always comforting during quiet moments. 

“I believe that the greatest difference between you and Tai,” BT cut through the silence, “is that he was not, as he had once called you, a smartass.”

Cooper barked a laugh. “At least he thought my jokes were funny!”

___

The Titan hangar was usually busiest in the mornings, and BT, trying to drown out thoughts he didn't want to think, focused on the sounds of engineers and mechanics fussing over repairs.

Cooper almost always showed up at the same time each day, but usually not this late, and never without a satisfying explanation. He found himself tapping a finger on his thigh, a tick he picked up from watching Lastimosa when his old Pilot was trying to stay calm.

BT heard Cooper before he saw him, when he finally did show up. He was laughing, and trotting beside him was a golden labrador retriever, who wore a blue vest with the words SERVICE DOG printed on both sides. Briggs was lagging behind them, watching from afar and smiling like she was a parent watching her kid play with a new friend. 

“Come on girl, come say hi!” Cooper baby-talked to the dog as they approached. Her tail was wagging like mad, as if she had never been happier to see someone in her life. He stopped in front of BT and she sat by his side at his command. She looked up into BT’s bright optic, panting with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.

“Say hi to Kelly, BT!” Cooper ushered, but BT kept still and quiet, fearing he would scare the dog off with any movement. 

Cooper saw him freeze in place and became a bit concerned. He had read stories to BT with dogs in them, but realized he had no idea how BT even felt about seeing one in person. “You've seen a dog before, right?”

“Correct,” BT said in a hushed voice. It was true, he had been around dogs before, but they were never happy to be around him. “They typically run away or urinate themselves in terror.”

Cooper laughed. “Well, she’s not afraid. This girl has been around Titans since she was a puppy!” He knelt down to pet her and her tail started up again. “They trained her just so she could be a therapy dog for Pilots, and she's so well-behaved that she never needs a leash.”

“Hello, Kelly,” BT said, slowly kneeling to reach his hand down to her, mimicking when he once saw soldiers playing with a therapy dog just like her. She tiptoed towards him to sniff his hand, her tail still wagging and tongue darting out to give him tiny licks on his fingers.

BT wondered what she thought of him – did she think he was another human, just bigger and weirder? Or did she realize he was something different? Did she even understand that he was not flesh and blood like her?

As questions flickered through his mind, Cooper reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a handful of dog treats and wiggled them in the air. “She knows lots of tricks, wanna try them?”

Cooper placed a treat on BT’s index finger, passing him more after every few tricks, as they were far too small for the Titan to handle himself. Kelly knew all the basics: sit, down, shake, roll over, heel, come.

“Don't tell Briggs, but I'm trying to teach her to play dead,” Cooper used his finger guns at her while making shooting noises, but she just stared at him with her goofy smile. He downed Kelly and used his hands to roll her onto her side, telling her to “play dead!” as he handed her another treat. “It'll take a few days, but she'll figure it out eventually.”

“Also!” Cooper pulled out a neon-yellow tennis ball, moving through the air when Kelly’s sight became fixated on it. “Every good dog loves to play fetch.” He threw the ball towards the empty hall of the hangar and Kelly darted after it.

She brought the ball back and dropped it into Cooper’s open palm, and he held the ball to BT. “Wanna try?”

The ball was just big enough for BT to pinch between his fingers. He reeled his arm back and launched the ball to the far end of the hangar until it hit the wall with a thud, and Kelly ran all the way after it. “Maaaybe don't throw it so far next time,” Cooper said he watched her sniff around trying to find where the ball had bounced off to.

“My apologies,” BT replied. Once she found it, Kelly brought ball the ball to BT, who threw it again, with less force this time. 

They kept playing fetch for a while. Cooper grabbed the ball at some point and pitched it towards Briggs, who was so caught up in a conversation with one of the ship pilots that she screamed bloody murder, like she'd been hit in the leg with a bullet and not a tennis ball at full force. Not a second later, Kelly barreled into her legs and Briggs toppled to the ground.

“Oh shit,” Cooper covered his mouth to stop himself from busting out laughing. Briggs pushed herself to her feet and grabbed the ball from Kelly, before the dog could snatch it up. Cooper had just enough time to shout “sorry!” at her before he was walloped in the chest by the ball.

“Ah, she got me!” Cooper dropped to the floor as dramatically as he could. “You'll have to take care of Kelly for me, BT!”

BT squinted at him, as if to say  _ I won't fall for it this time _ . Kelly ran back and barked at Cooper, takingthe opportunity to pounce and lick his face. Cooper laughed and pushed her away until he could sit up, his face covered in dog drool.

He dried off with the towel kept in Kelly’s dog bag while BT continued playing fetch, until she grew tired and flopped down on the cool metal floor, panting so much that it shook her whole body. Cooper set a water bowl down for her, which she sloppily lapped up, without getting up.

“How did you acquire her?” BT asked, watching as Kelly spilled half the water as she gulped it down.

“She’s from some organization that the Militia made to train therapy dogs for their soldiers,” Cooper sat on the floor next to Kelly to stroke her back once she finished making a mess. “We get to keep her while we're planetside, but she can't come with us. They don't want to risk losing their dogs in the war.”

“It is a shame that she cannot stay.”

Cooper smiled. “You like her that much?”

He hoped that, just maybe, a dog would help ease whatever pain it was BT felt after losing his old Pilot. At least, he  _ thought _ the Titan might be silently suffering, but if he was, the Titan never talked about it.

“Yes," BT said. I like how happy she makes you.”

Oh. He was stuck with BT forever, he figured.

“Cooper!” Briggs trotted up to them, grabbing the bag with all of the dog supplies that Cooper had ditched on the floor and threw it over her shoulder. “Kelly needs to go, we’re leaving early.”

“But it's only been a few hours, we were supposed to be here a week!”

“That's war, Cooper. Kelly, come.” Briggs patted her leg and Kelly obediently followed.

Cooper watched them until they were out of sight,  then let out a frustrated sigh and slumped to the floor with his arms spread wide. He stared at the massive ceiling, unsure if he was more upset for BT or for himself. 

BT peered down at him. “I'm sorry.”

Cooper shrugged. “It's better this way. Besides, we’ll see Kelly when we get back.”

“And you can finish teaching her to play dead.” BT threw him a few finger guns and Cooper couldn't contain the burst of laughter that filled the hangar.

___

Having BT around made it easier than ever for Cooper to tune out of Briggs’ banal debriefing – monologuing, really – she liked to deliver to the Pilots after missions.

He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Gates and another woman whose name he couldn’t remember. BT was behind him, likewise standing beside his fellow Titans. Briggs paced through the dirt and mud as she rambled something about the IMC and how evil and corrupt and dumb they were – BT would fill him in on any important details later, when his mind wasn’t going numb from sleep deprivation.

Forcing himself not to nod off right where he was standing didn’t stop Cooper from hearing a quiet thud from behind him, like metal hitting metal. He turned to look back at BT – still standing at attention, gaze cast ahead and unmoving as a statue. Next to him, the Titan of that woman – a Legion-class, KW-1801, her name plastered on her chassis – fidgeted, but otherwise didn't move. 

Cooper returned to his stance. He watched Briggs wave her hands around as she spoke, too absorbed in her own speech to have noticed anything.

When she turned her back to them again, Cooper heard the thud once more, much louder this time.

He turned around just in time to watch BT elbow KW in the arm, hard. The other Titan returned the gesture, but with enough force that she knocked BT off balance. BT took a few steps to steady himself, then launched a fist at the Titan.

The blow struck and KW staggered backwards. She seized BT by the chassis, lifted him into the air, and slammed him into the mud like a giant brick, and walloped him on the chest with both fists. 

“Hey! Cut it out!” Cooper yelled, jumping back to avoid BT’s flailing arms.

MOB grabbed KW’s arm and yanked her away, while Bear’s Titan hauled BT to his feet.

“Cooper! Lee! Get your damn Titans under control!” Briggs screamed.

KW stomped her feet like an angry bull, splashing mud around. “ They should dump your Pilot in the scrap heap–” she was cut off when BT threw another punch. KW grabbed his fist, then twisted and pulled his arm towards her to shoulder him in the face.

They fought like rabid dogs and kicked up mud. The Legion was slower than BT, but stronger, able to take any blow he threw at her and return it with even more force. 

The other Titans struggled to break up the fight, mostly succeeding in getting hit in the crossfire. All the Pilots could do was yell at them to stop and dive out the way of being crushed by their massive bodies and avoid flying mud.

Gate’s Titan seized BT by the leg and pulled until he fell flat on his face. MOB took the opportunity to shove himself between the two and hold the Legion back.

“Lee, get KW out of here now!” Briggs was snarling with anger, looking like she might start foaming at the mouth any second.

The Pilot ushered her Titan back to the ship, leaving BT to pick himself off the ground. 

“What the hell, BT?” Cooper strode over to BT with his arms stretched wide in shock. Getting into a fistfight with an ally Titan was not on the list of weird things Cooper had ever expected from BT. In his mind, when they weren’t fighting battles, BT was as gentle as a butterfly. It was obviously a misguided sentiment.

BT’s stared at the ground and said nothing, as Cooper expected.

“KW likes to taunt other Titans for some dumbass reason,” Briggs closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I guess BT took it personally.”

“KW-1801 would not stop pinging me insults about my Pilot,” BT snapped. The contempt in his voice was clear – he sounded  _ angry _ , something Cooper had never heard from him before.

“Doesn’t matter, attacking an ally is out of line. Outside of missions, you and KW are forbidden to talk to each other. That’s an order.” She waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Everyone, we're done here.”

“Yes ma’am,” BT acknowledged without looking at her.

Cooper gave Briggs a weak salute, and she left with the others to board the waiting ship. BT didn’t speak again until it was only him and Cooper left standing.

“Are you mad at me?”

Cooper shrugged and smiled.

“I don’t think I could ever be mad at you, buddy.” He patted BT’s leg and grimaced at the mud that ended up on his hand afterward, and he watched the Titan’s fists uncurl and posture soften. “I'm flattered you like me enough to fight for my honor.”

“I will not let you be disrespected by an ally, especially not by another Titan.” His tone was thick with frustration, but the anger was gone.

“Just don't go squishing anybody because they might've said mean things about me,” Cooper rubbed his muddy hand on his pants and, realizing they were just as dirty, shook his hand in the air in a poor attempt to get it clean. “Come on, let's get you cleaned up and buff out those dents. You look like a wreck and I need a shower.”

___

Cooper jolted awake to the feeling of cold metal poking his side, goading him from sleep. His skin felt cold and he could see puffs of fog forming with each breath, yet his clothes were soaked with sweat. He looked up to see BT crouched over him, the light of his optic cutting through the dark sky.

“You were screaming in your sleep.”

Cooper laid on his back and covered his eyes with his arm. “Sorry, buddy. I ran out of those meds to stop the night terrors.”

“I know. I have already requested more during our next supply drop.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Unless you've got a cure for PTSD, not really.”

The cot and thin blanket Cooper used weren't enough to stop the cold air from sapping the heat from his body. They opted not to start a campfire, fearing it would only give away their position on yet another one of their missions on some lonely planet, and Cooper had no desire to try sleeping in the cockpit, regardless of how warm it was.

Cooper lifted his arm to look at BT again. The Titan said nothing and didn't move, like he was lost in thought. “What're you thinking about?”

“Many things,” BT said, and when Cooper looked at him expectantly, added, “I am currently running 187 separate thought processes.”

“Jeez.” Cooper wished his own brain had that kind of processing power. “What's the top three about?”

“An analysis of how I could be of help to you at this moment. Continuous scans of the environment to detect threats. And–”

He stopped.

“And?”

BT  heaved a sigh and his posture sagged, like his body was weighed down by his own thoughts.

“I am thinking about Lastimosa.”

Of course he was. “Do you ever stop thinking about him?”

“No.”

It hurt Cooper how sad BT always sounded when he talked about his old pilot. He reached out and patted his Titan’s foot, unsure how to comfort him. “I'm sorry, buddy.”

“So am I.”

Cooper thought about how things might have been different if Lastimosa was still alive, Cooper with his own Titan – undoubtedly something BT thought about too, he was certain.

He sat up suddenly.

“Is it still Tuesday?”

“Negative. It is two hours past midnight.”

“Shit.” Cooper jumped to his feet and started shuffling through the duffle bag he brought with him. “I can't fucking believe I forgot this, “ he uttered curses to himself as he pulled something out, holding it behind his back when he turned to face BT. It was a pointless gesture, he knew BT saw it when he put it in the bag earlier that day, but the Titan never questioned it.

“Happy late birthday, buddy,” he grinned. It was actually Briggs who approached Cooper about BT’s birthday – Lastimosa used to celebrate it the past two years they knew each other, which is how the Titan ended up with a huge pile of books after he found out BT liked being read to. “I would've done this sooner, but you know, too busy trying not to get shot.”

“I do not have a date of birth,” BT deadpanned. He held out a hand for Cooper, who stepped up, and held him to eye level. 

“Would you rather I say ‘happy manufactured day’?”

“It is a more accurate reflection.”

“Happy whatever-you-want-it-to-be-called day,” Cooper held out a book, spiral-bound and made of old, dirty leather. It's corners were well worn, and the  edges of the paper were stained brown.

Cooper took the initiative to open the book and flip through the pages for BT. “I used to draw a lot in my free time. Not so much anymore, but I kept all of my sketchbooks.”

BT stared intently at the drawings: sketches of people, soldiers, spaceships and Titans skimmed past, all drawings of life around Cooper. He spotted drafts of Cooper’s tattoo as well, and of Vanguard class Titans, any of which could have been him, and there were plenty of blank pages to spare.

“Still gotta fill up the rest of it, figured I could start drawing again, get some sketches of you in here,” Cooper gave him a soft smile. He closed the book and held it out to BT. “I know you're probably not the picture-book type, but it's yours now, and I'll gladly help you look at it whenever you want.”

BT stared at the book. Cooper shifted on his feet, growing uncomfortable with the silence. “You okay buddy? I'm sorry if it's not something you expected…”

Slowly, BT brought the Pilot closer to him until the Pilot was snug against his chassis. His free arm gently wrapped around Cooper – the best he could do for a hug.

“Thank you.”

Cooper laid his head and atop BT’s and patted his chassis.

“Anything for my best friend.”

___

“Pilot.”

Silence.

“Cooper.”

Nothing.

“Jack.”

Cooper awoke to the sound of BT reciting his name over the comms, jarring him from his dreams. So many times he found himself waking up for emergencies that he opted to keep a communicator on him at all times, something he was regretting at the moment. He yawned, stretched, and for a few seconds, considered throwing the comm across the room.

“I'm awake, buddy, what's up?”

BT said nothing. Cooper was expecting that.

“Should I come over there?” he offered. 

“I would like that.”

It was not the first time BT had called for him in the middle of the night, and he knew it wouldn't be the last.

  
  


Come morning, Cooper failed to report for duty in the hangar.

BT stood silently in formation by himself, flanked by his fellows, as they started every day. Briggs could have easily pinged Cooper through the comms, but it didn't take much thought to figure out where he might be.

“BT, you got Cooper?” Briggs asked. He looked at her and blinked, and she gave him a stern gaze. “Don't lie to me.”

With some hesitation, BT opened his hood – and there sat Cooper, snoring in the Pilot seat.

Briggs cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. “COOPER!”

Cooper flinched and jumped to his feet, only to hit his head on the top of the cockpit. He stumbled forward and would have face planted the ground, had BT not caught him and set him down gently. He staggered, but managed to stay upright. It felt like gravity was trying to kill him with how heavy his body felt, and the painful pounding in his head was making him dizzy.

“Did you spend the whole night in there?” Briggs crossed her arms. 

Cooper rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms as he steadied himself. “He said he was lonely.”

“How many times have you been coming down here instead of actually sleeping?”

“I dunno, like three, four times?”

She looked BT in the eye. “How many?”

He wouldn't meet her gaze. “Every night for the past two weeks.”

“Constant sleep deprivation is going to get Cooper killed on the battlefield, BT. You have to stop.”

“Understood,” BT said reflexively, his voice deflated. He didn't want to talk about it, that much they could tell. 

Briggs shook her head. “I'm giving you the day off, Cooper. Catch up on your sleep.”

“Roger,” Cooper mumbled and attempted a salute, but gave up half way. He weakly patted BT’s leg. “I'll be back later, buddy. Try to keep cool.”

“I'll take care of him,” Briggs said. He gave her a thumbs up, and she watched him trudged back to bed with a hand against the walls to hold himself up. He tripped over his own feet twice along the way, which would have been funny if it weren't so pitiful.

  
  


Cooper spent the next few nights curled up in bed, reveling in the restful sleep he was getting now that he stopped wearing the comms and BT was no longer able to pestering him. He felt bad for leaving BT by himself again, but the Titan always seemed fine when he returned, so Cooper wasn't worrying over it.

But BT couldn't bring himself to be honest to his Pilot. He began a habit of pacing the hangar every night when Cooper left to sleep, and Briggs finally grew tired of it after three days of complaints from Pilots and mechanics over him being in the way.

“BT, come on, whatever’s bothering you, we can talk about it,“ Briggs said, gesturing for BT to return to his spot among the other Titans.

BT kept going. 

Briggs huffed and cut him off, crossing her arms when he came to a halt before her. “I'm not doing this. Stop screwing around and get back in position, that's an order.”

BT eyed her for a moment, then sidestepped past her. He walked to the end of the hangar and pinged the hangar to open up while Briggs yelled at him.

MOB moved to barricade BT’s escape as the doors began to slide open. When BT skirted around him as well, MOB grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

BT twisted out of his grip and used all his weight to shove MOB away from him. MOB tumbled backwards, careening onto the busy work area of a few mechanics, who darted out of the way before he crashed to the floor, sending tools and scrap metal flying into the air.

BT rushed out of the hangar and into the open air. The planet they were on was dark, lacking any sort of moons to brighten things up, but the ships floodlights washed everything in white, while lights from small, nearby cities lit the sky orange, with little more than a few specks for stars. An alien forest extended before him, pitch black beyond its edge.

BT ignored the shouts of Briggs and pings from MOB to come back and charged into the woods, knocking over whatever stood in his path, disappearing into the dark forest.

 

Cooper, on the other hand, was passed out in bed, until something grabbed him in the middle of the quiet night and dragged him out.

He screamed as he fell to the floor in a heap of blankets, kicking at the thing holding onto his ankles until it let go. “Cooper, stop! It's me!” Briggs’ voice hit his ears and he went still. 

“Why couldn't you wake me up like a normal human being?” he groaned as he sat up, pulling the warm blankets around himself to shield his skin from the cold air.

“Cooper, listen, just tell your Titan to stop throwing a tantrum and get back in the hangar.” She ignored the question to pull the sheets away from him, leaving him on the freezing cold floor.

He had a lot of questions and strong desire to hop back into bed, but worry overtook everything and he pushed himself to his feet without a second thought.

They jogged to the hangar in silence. Cooper was in his pajamas – just a plain t-shirt and sweat pants – but Briggs was still in uniform, and he wondered if she just never bothered to change, or if she even slept at all.

When they arrived, the draft of cold air that wafted from the open hangar door made Cooper shiver. For a second, Cooper thought it was BT standing in the doorway, waiting for them – but he blinked a few times and realized it was MOB.

“Moby, you still got a lock on BT?" Briggs asked.

“Affirmative,” MOB extended his hands for the Pilots to step up on, and they sat on top of his chassis. “He is six kilometers east.” Briggs dangled her legs over the side, but Cooper kept cross-legged in the middle. He felt incredibly uncomfortable without his gear, to make sure he wouldn't break anything if he fell off, but he trusted MOB not to let that happen.

“Mush,” Briggs lightly kicked MOB like she was cueing a horse to walk. The Titan ambled out the hangar and into the night, using the light of his optic to show the way.

They followed BT’s trail of collapsed trees and trampled shrubbery. The forest was eerie at night, and anywhere that wasn't lit up was pitch black. Cooper watched the trees carefully, feeling like some alien monster might pounce him at any moment. “What the hell is he doing out here?” he ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “He’s not usually  _ this _ bad.”

“Fuck if I know. He's been pacing the hangar the past few nights, and when I finally ordered him to stop, he just up and left. Like I insulted his mom or something,” Briggs said.

Why didn't he tell Cooper? “Are other Titans like this?”

“What, babies who cry when they don't get their way?”

“Come on, Briggs,” Cooper shook his head, in no mood to put up with her jokes.

“A lot of them usually get attached to their Pilots, but I've never seen one with  _ separation anxiety _ ,” she shrugged. "Most Titans I know either went down with their Pilots, or the Titan went down to save the Pilot. The one that come back alone get a new partner as soon as we can assign one, but your situation was unique.”

Cooper thought back to their first few days together. “He seemed fine before we destroyed the Ark.”

“Yeah, before we won and the fighting died down. Now whenever you're not there, he's got nothing to do but sit around and deal with his own thoughts.” She drummed her fingers on MOB’s chassis. “I think BT just doesn't know how to cope with grief.”

“How am supposed to help that? It's not like I can let him cry on my shoulder.”

“I don't know, just talk to him? He might act like a little kid sometimes, but he’s not stupid and doesn't need to be coddled.”

“I concur,” MOB spoke up. “BT-7274 would benefit from communication. I have attempted to discuss with him about his distress many times before, but he has refused. I believe he would be much more receptive to Pilot Cooper, but he has not initiated a conversation. I do not know why.”

“I wish I knew about this sooner,” Cooper mumbled. He had plenty of opportunities to ask BT, he realized, but never did. He always felt BT would tell him if something was wrong, but the Titan wasn't an open book like he so imagined.

They traveled mostly in silence. Cooper glanced back and watched as the city lights receded behind them and the stars in the sky slowly crept into existence.

“It's beautiful out here,” Briggs remarked as she observed the sky.

When they finally found BT, he was laying on his back in the middle of an open clearing, gazing at the stars. Here, the night sky was dazzling, far enough from light pollution that you could practically see the entire Milky Way shining down.

“BT!” Cooper yelled in relief to see him alive and well. BT blinked, but didn't acknowledge their presence.

MOB gently set the two Pilots down on the forest floor, and Cooper jogged to the Titan and clambered up his chassis. He stood with hands on his hips, looking down into BT’s optic. “Don't ignore me.”

BT closed his eye. “I am sorry.”

“Why don’t you ever talk to me about how you're feeling, buddy?”

BT released a puff of air that stirred up a cyclone of dead leaves into the air. “Because I do not want to think about it.”

“That's not going to make the problem go away.”

“Hey BT,” Briggs climbed up to join them. She knelt to brush the stray leaves off of the Titan’s head, and he opened his eye to look at her. “You remember that time when Tai lost one of his close friends during a mission?”

BT nodded once, slowly.

“You both watched him go down, and when it was over, Tai just shook his head, dried his tears, and went back to what he was doing, like nothing happened. You asked something like, why wasn't he grieving over his lost friend? And he said–”

"You're going to lose a lot of friends out here,” Lastimosa’s voice rang through the air as BT played back the recording from that very moment. “And one of them might be me. Trust me, BT, whatever happens, you can't let it get the best of you. It'll drive you insane.”

“He was right, wasn't he?” Briggs asked.

BT closed his eye again. “Very much so.”

“You two used to talk about everything.”

“Yes,” BT mumbled. “It hurts to think about him.”

“He's your Titan, Cooper. You two need to talk this out.” Briggs stood up and dusted the loose leaves off her uniform. “I can't stay here, I've still got a job to uphold. Can I trust you two to make it back to the hangar on your own?”

“Yep,” Cooper gave her a thumbs up, and BT mimicked the gesture. Briggs gave a farewell salute, boarded her Titan, and left the two to themselves.

They listened to the sound of MOB’s footsteps fade through the woods, and then it was quiet.

Cooper laid down on his chassis and rested his hands behind his head. The Titan was warm, a reprieve from the permeating cold air.

“I'm sorry, buddy,” Cooper said, absentmindedly staring at the sky. He should have known better.

“It is not your fault.”

“You're still my responsibility,” Cooper patted his chassis. “Promise you'll talk to me first when something's wrong. Okay?”

“I promise.”

Cooper sighed. It was going to take a lot more than a single promise to fix this, but it could at least wait ‘til tomorrow.

He gazed at the sky and asked, “You know these stars, buddy?” He was certain BT had already labeled them all a hundred times over in his robotic brain.

“Affirmative. Tai taught me about the stars and constellations on Harmony,” BT replied. 

“You got a favorite constellation?” Cooper asked. They weren't actually visible from this alien planet, but he figured, maybe their light was.

“I do,” BT pointed up into the starry sky.

Cooper smiled as he listened to BT recount the tale of heroes, villains, and old myths from Earth surrounding these points of light in the sky, all stories he heard from Lastimosa.

He could never replace Lastimosa, Cooper knew that, but damned if he wouldn't try his hardest to make his best friend happy.

  
  
  



End file.
